Running Away
by Lady of the Phoenix
Summary: Alearustuck Sidestory. It had taken all of her life up until this point to figure out just what to do with her life, and it was almost laughable. The one thing she had sworn to herself was that she'd never be what Alternia had made her. What her choices had made her. Looking back it was all too like some cosmic joke.


Author's Notes: This wasn't the one I was planning to do just now, but someone suggested it and I realized I wanted to explain why Vriska is a 'Sir-not-appearing-in-this-fic' character in A Handful of Diamonds. So she needed some sort of explanation about why she left. And so, the fic happened.

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><p>Running Away<p>

It had taken all of her life up until this point to figure out just what to do with her life, and it was almost laughable. The one thing she had sworn to herself was that she'd never be what Alternia had made her. What her choices had made her. Never someone who hurt others for her own ends. Never someone caught up with stories of the past and memories of a life she'd never lived. Those were the things she had promised herself when she had been shocked into her memories during a schoolstem field trip to the Ristart faunaterria when she was only eight years old. That had been the day she had seen him, seen Tavros, by the gazelle enclosure, his own schoolstem class taking a trip that day as well. Vriska had seen him and known. Remembered was the truth of it, but it had taken another year to sort it all out and understand.

Looking back it was all too like some cosmic joke. She had spent two years on a journal to sort it all out. There had been so much to arrange—more than many of the others as she had just learned—and somehow she realized too late what she was becoming in her chronicling.

Maybe there was something about being a Serket that always told true, no matter what they wanted.

"Vriska?"

"You've got the wrong person, Fussyfangs," she breezed with every scrap of self-assurance she could fake. Which, amazingly, was far more than she'd truly expected. Who knew she even had it in her?

"What are you doing out here when the celebration is still in full swing?" Kanaya continued as if Vriska hadn't just tried to gain a few points of snarky broad.

"I don't belong there. But really, I never did," she laughed bitterly.

"I am quite afraid that I do not under..."

"You don't remember it like I do," Vriska snapped, whirling on the jadeblood and narrowing her eyes. "You're the lucky ones. You remember snippets and snatches. The important things you've got pretty decently, the meaningful things pretty well, and the details, the other stuff, rarely at all. And don't say it isn't true. I _heard _the stories just as well as you did, and I remembered things no one else would say!"

"Vriska," Kanaya repeated, her voice soft and low as she stepped closer, her arm outstretched to touch Vriska.

"I made stairs, Kanaya. STAIRS!" she roared as she backed away. "Narrow stairs no wider than my foot. And I told him to climb them. I jumped him off a cliff, paralyzed him, and then I had the gall to tell him to climb stairs. And you know what made me finally help him? Make his damn flying non-wheeled device? Can you even begin to imagine what did it, Kanaya?"

There was no response, just Kanaya staring at her in a kind of pity that Vriska remembered and hated her for. How dare she start getting anything near pale right now? Gods that were them and not knew that it hadn't worked out the first time. That Vriska had blown it all on her own because she hadn't seen the redder feelings. Her terrible timing and obsession with Tavros after what she had done to him had turned the wrong way into feelings she tried to force onto herself, and she had hurt Kanaya, hurt someone who genuinely gave a damn, worse than she had any fucking right to.

"You prodded me in the head with a load gaper. That is why I treated him better!"

And, of course, only made Kanaya look at her in the worst kind of confusion. The kind of confusion that only confirmed what Vriska was already certain of.

"I could see that same realization in the eyes of the other Lights, and in the Times. We knew, we KNOW more than you can even begin to remember and the worst part is, I don't think that's going to always be true." At last she couldn't take the look of pity anymore and turned away, staring out toward the sea as she had been doing before Kanaya had come to interrupt her pathetic reminiscing. "He remembers the paralyzing. He remembers not killing me. Remembers me killing him. Remembers... The horror that was the sprite. Remembers the ships. I can see how he winces when he looks at me. I can imagine just how he'll look when he remembers the stairs. The blinding. The... Everything else."

A deep breath, meant to be calming, but instead only managing to fill her mouth and lungs with the taste of salt water. Strange, the sea called to her now in the same way it had when she was a child on Alternia. The winds whispered wistfully of travel without being accountable to anyone. Adventure and treasure. Promises of secrets deep beneath the waves. But more than anything, there was the promise of solitude. Of a place where she could go and not be the source of the worst of some of their memories. Where she couldn't hurt him. Where Aradia didn't narrow her eyes every time she passed, where Tavros didn't shy away, where Sollux didn't hesitate. Where no one knew who she was or what she had done. The sea offered it all, and she'd never known it until tonight. Troubles of growing up in a landlocked town like Pennace.

"Vriska..."

"You keep saying my name like it means something," she whispered to herself in the silence that hung in the air after Kanaya trailed off, clearly having no idea what to say next.

"I need to redeem myself," she answered aloud, unable to keep the longing and need from her voice. "And the only way to do that is to not be here."

"Is that really what you want?" Kanaya asked as Vriska listened to her feet make whispering sounds against the sand while she strode forward. "To run away and never come back? To never make up for what you did or think you did?"

"It isn't as simple as what I do or don't think I did. It's what I remember, and it's not in question. And yet you keep insisting, Kanaya, and for the life of me I can't even begin to fathom why!"

"Please, Vriska, I believe departing at this juncture would be a poor choice."

With that Kanaya finally closed the distance between them, her hand closing easily around Vriska's wrist. It was a step too far, too soon, and the reaction came before the thought. The ceruleanblooded troll whirled on her heels, snapping her arm to the side as she did so to break the grip. Of course it did more than that. Maybe the distance between jade and cerulean wasn't too great, but instinct and fear had taken over, and it was with full strength that she jerked around. In the process of breaking the grip Vriska all but flung Kanaya away from her. There was a moment, half a moment, where she saw the look of shock in Kanaya's wide eyes, and then the other troll was several feet away, sprawled in the sand, and with a look of pure disbelief painted across her face.

Faced with that sight, all she could do was run.

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Gill, you gonna tell me just water we doin' here?"

The voice reverberated around the damp walls of the sea cave, and with it Vriska curled up into a tighter ball in the little shadowy corner she had found for herself. There was no way to mistake the voice for anyone but Meenah, and she was one of the few Vriska truly didn't want to speak with. Her not-memories said so much about Meenah, and yet so little. A fight. An unintentional corruption of a friend. Hunting the seas for some weapon or other. Things after her death were more vague than others, but she knew that she didn't want to see Meenah. Was afraid to. Afraid of what she'd say. Afraid of what she'd fail to do.

"According to Kanaya, Vriska ran off in this general direction after they argued."

"That weren't no argument," Meenah's voice growled at Aranea's, and Vriska just tried all the harder to stay silent. "If what you're tellin' me is true then she didn't run off just for the halibut. There gotta be moray going on here than what Porrim-lite told us."

"There, at least, I concur."

The voices were growing closer and it was hard, almost too hard, to keep still. It wasn't them hearing her that worried Vriska. There would be a chance of that no matter what she tried to do. No, the issue that was presented here was Aranea's own vision eight-fold. The fact that she could see almost flawlessly in the dim light of the sea cave meant Aranea was going to have just as easy of a time. Even the small gap she had managed to squeeze herself into wasn't dark enough to hide her if they were searching closely.

"Then why are we even here? Clearly she doesn't want us here. Whatebber this lunasea is about, it's her business. You ain't looking to force her to carp it out, are you Serket?"

"Meenah, I... I have a responsibility to her," Aranea sighed, and finally Vriska saw them, the pair just barely stepping into her limited line of sight. All Vriska could do was hold her breath and hope they went past. All she needed was a little bit of luck.

"Yeah, I don't actshoally bereef that's what this is all about. You've got somefin you're planning, and last time your planning didn't exactly go the best," Meenah snarked as she came to a halt outside of Vriska's hiding place. Not that she was looking at Vriska at all. Could she really be so lucky as to have them so close and not notice?

"You said you didn't remember that very well," Aranea protested almost pathetically weakly, but Meenah just waved her off.

"I don't gotta know no details to be certain that it went wrong. You're not a great schemer, Windfang."

"I think my ploy was quite wonderful, and benevolent," Aranea countered, fists on her hips. "Just because I was a bit misguided and the plan failed doesn't mean I didn't have the best intentions. That's how Serkets work: best intentions!"

"The road to human hell is paved with good intentions," Meenah sighed, shaking her head. "Ain't that right, Vriska?"

Fuck.

"You sort of missed the fact that you scraped your arm getting in there," Aranea continue for Meenah, striding up to the break in the stone and wiping her fingers across it. They came away with the smallest hint of blue, but it was enough for her to understand. A seatroll could smell a single drop of blood in the water from miles away, and while that range was more limited on the land, they were still pretty handy. There was a reason that a lot of them were used for land-based search and rescue teams on Alearus. "Sorry. We found you."

With that Aranea extended her hand slowly, offering Vriska help from the cranny she had chosen to hide in. Vriska, though, just stared at the offered hand and didn't move. They stood there for well over a minute, neither saying anything, neither moving, before Meenah finally pushed Aranea aside and held her own hand out.

"I don't..." Vriska started to say, only to be cut off by Meenah tsking and grabbing her arm regardless.

"Clam up and come out of there. I ain't gonna ask twice. So just listen to your moireel and..."

"You're not my moirail," Vriska spat out, unable to help the slight jump in her pusher. A jump of excitement and of fear. That was a card she couldn't handle Meenah playing, because she wasn't sure if it would hurt more if Meenah forgot or remembered their not-quite quadrant.

"Yeah, and I ain't technically her 'sprit, but there ya have it. Things ain't exactly simple no more, what with the whole double death and then extra life thing. But we gotta adapt. Become the bigger fish in the ocean."

Still she didn't move, staring in disbelief at Meenah. Was it possible? Was it well and truly possible that...

"If it helps," Aranea finally said to break the stalemate, "we don't intend on staying here either. There's... too much tension because of what we all did. I... The humans look at me and... I tried to do it for the right reasons, but I was too caught up in who I had been in another life. Meenah... Well, neither of us want her around Damara, and frankly..."

"Frankly I don't do well packed in with others like a sardine. I'm angling to get out of this place. See the world we made," Meenah offered. "Gonna get a boat, load it up, and set out. Want you with me. You can be first mate."

With that Vriska gave in to the gentle tugging at her arm, letting Meenah all but deliver her from her hiding place. But Meenah didn't just let her stop there. The older troll pulled her into a tight embrace, stroked her hair, and even made some rather pathetic attempts at shooshing noises. Aranea, who Vriska could see over Meenah's shoulder, even had the decency to blush at the pale display.

"So long as you're with me, Serkets, everyfins gonna be fine. I promise."

For the first time since her memories had flashed into her life, Vriska truly believed it too.


End file.
